Saturday, November 2, 2013

Because of Halloween, this week's Breakfast Links have a decidedly spooky flavor to them. Look for all our fav links to other web sites, blogs, articles, and images, gathered for you from around the Twitterverse.
• Fit for a king (or queen): house once owned by Henry VIII up for sale.
• Employing "a fish bladder filled with blood": the useful art of faking virginity in the 17th century.
• This amazing bat hat c. 1917 must have been an unsettling fashion accessory.
• The most terrifying trousers ever: 17th c. necropants made from the legs of a corpse.
• A humble occupation for the talented in 1911: street pavement artists.
• The strange and mysterious history of the Ouija Board.
• Behold Jane Austen: a massively multiplayer role-playing game that explores the world of Jane Austen's novels.
• "The novel is a wonder": this week in 1924, F. Scott Fitzgerald sent his editor an early draft of The Great Gatsby, and this letter.
• The Queen's Halloween: how Queen Victoria enthusiastically celebrated the holiday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
• How to be black-balled, Georgian style.
• It's alive! For the first time, explore original Mary Shelley manuscripts - including Frankenstein - via online archives.
• What to do with all those leftover pumpkins? Inspiration from a Regency cookbook.
• The hill of bones: the macabre story of the burial ground at Bunhill Fields.
• Hobgoblin classification in the 18th century.
• Satanic seduction: 17th c. witches, the devil, and fertility.
• A beautiful white enamel mourning ring for Sarah Nicholls, c. 1755.
• This 1920s-style costume, made from an antique table cloth, has appeared in many productions, including Downton Abbey.
• Armed and dangerous: the wide variety of Victorian prosthetics.
• London's market gardens: the Neat Houses.
• How to avoid dancing with death, according to an 1808 Cruikshank print.
• "Studies in Passions and Emotions": yes, they're 19th c. emoticons.
• Why did J.P.Morgan's prize bulldog die of shame?
• If only we had deeper pockets! Auctions featuring Jane Austen-related items.
• A piratical haul: five of Blackbeard's cannons lifted from the Atlantic off the coast of North Carolina.
• The Statue of Liberty turned 125 years old this week; the unveiling in 1886 did not go as planned.
• Impeccably dressed English tourists on donkeys distinguish an Edwardian excursion to view the Sphinx in 1910.
• in 1854, a father gave his daughter a unique betrothal gift: a scrapbook of engravings decorated with blood drops.
• The influence of World War One on fashion meant military coats and black evening gowns.
• Lovely photographs of Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn's family home.
• One remedy for barrenness in the 17th c.: aphrodisiacs.
• Made in Taiwan? An 18th c. Frenchman aims for the bestseller list with his account of a fantastic, fictional Formosa.
• In case you missed National Cat Day this week: coveting the craziest cat-people collectibles.
• Les Diableries: 19th c. French stereo views of daily life in Hell.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

Thanks so much for the link to the Queen's Halloween celebration at Balmoral. What a great collection of spooky links! Let's dress up in our bat hat and our necropants and play with a Ouija board, do a dance of death, or frolic with Les Diableries! Wonderful and bizarre. But the most bizarre is that book with the drops of blood. I wonder if Shirley Jackson knew of it. The blood book is inscribed to Garland's daughter: The inscription at the beginning of the book, from John Bingley Garland to his daughter Amy on September 1, 1854, reads as follows: “A legacy left in his lifetime for her future examination by her affectionate father.” In The Haunting of Hill House, the book compiled by Hugh Crain and signed in his blood is inscribed "Memories for Sophia Anne Lester Crain, a Legacy for Her Education and Enlightenment During Her Lifetime From Her Affectionate and Devoted Father, Hugh Desmond Lester Craine; Twenty-first June 1881."

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.